It is quite common for a household to have a long handled brush in or about its shower or bath for use in scrubbing the houseowner's back. However, it is uncommon to find a back brush in a bathing area used by numerous unrelated persons, such as in a hotel or nursing home, due to concerns relating to the maintenance of the sanitary cleanliness of the brush, especially the bristles or sponge head of the brush. Such concern over the sanitary nature of brushes occurs because the entire brush, including the handle, is generally unitary with the brush or sponge head, and there is no efficient method of being able to make the brush sanitary between uses.
The instant invention solves this problem elegantly and effectively by separating the handle portion from the head portion and making the head portion easily removable from and replaceable on the handle with a simple sliding motion. The head is also simply designed so as to be inexpensively produced so that it can be disposed of between uses.
Disposable head brushes have been used in other areas, such as in toothbrushes. For example, a disposable head toothbrush is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,811,445. However, this toothbrush would not be adaptable to a back brush because the head is very elaborate and expensive to produce and the attaching mechanism between the handle and the head would be difficult for an individual to operate in the larger scale of a back brush.
It is also known to attach a back brush to a wall by suction cups as in U.S. Pat. No. 4,943,018. The bristles of this brush are obviously not disposable for use by various unrelated persons.